The first quarter of 2024 was poor for the Estonian tourism sector. However, this Friday, Tallinn Harbor and Tallinn Airport were both buzzing and the capital's spa hotel pools were full of families making the most of the start of spring break.

Despite high inflation, there are more travelers and holidaymakers than last spring.

"If we look at this year's numbers and last year's numbers, the they are more or less in the same ballpark. There is not the surge that we saw in previous years. Those surges in previous years were most likely due to the post-Covid period and the increased demand for travel" said Olev Riisberg, head of marketing and public relations at tour operator Novatours.

"People are making their decisions quite last minute. We see quite a lot of people buying tickets for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It's just the habit of these new times. Covid has changed people's travel planning and people are also looking at where they can travel because everything has become quite expensive. So, we will definitely see those people who can't go any further by plane, but would prefer to opt for a closer destination, whether that's Finland or Sweden," said Paavo Nõgene, chair of Tallink's management board.

This February's tourism fair also provided indications that the summer will be comparable to last year's.

"People are instead looking for the best value for money. More work is needed to sell the whole package. Interest in travel has stabilized. The tone is still being set by the same popular destinations: the Greek islands, Turkey, Montenegro, Bulgaria," Riisberg said.

"As people are making their decisions relatively last minute, it is definitely too early to declare the final outcome, but we do not foresee a shortfall in bookings compared to last year. At the moment, everything looks similar, but it all depends on what happens geopolitically. Rather fortunately, we are starting to see a return of travelers from more distant markets," Nõgene said.

"As prices in Pärnu are higher in summer on average and the Latvian customer is a bit more price sensitive than the Finnish customer, there are fewer Latvians in the summer, but in the off-season the number of Latvians is growing very fast," said Andrus Aljas, manager of Pärnu Estonia Spa Hotel.

"For example, our spa hotel had practically the same number of Estonian clients as Latvian clients last month. It was the first time that the proportion of Latvians was so high," he added.

For both internal and external tourism, a lot depends on the weather, especially in Pärnu. When the summer is warm, more holidaymakers arrive

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